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Wednesday, May 6, 2015

2015 Week 11 Preview: Kansas

SpongeBob SquarePants 400

Kansas Speedway


By Richard Tix

This week NASCAR leaves Talladega and the wild card race of a superspeedway back to it's bread and butter, the 1.5 mile tracks. This Saturday NASCAR will be back at Kansas for the first time in 2015. Both the Cup cars and Trucks will be at Kansas for the short weekend.

Not only do we get a Saturday night race, but Kansas also will be letting a bit more SpongeBob into our racing world. The race is not only the SpongeBob SquarePants 400 but about five cars will be sporting SpongeBob Paint Schemes (Ty Dillon, Greg Biffle, Michael McDowell, David Ragan (55), and Casey Mears). Needless to say it will be a colorful night on the track.

The stop back at a 1.5 will bring back some of the strong cars we saw earlier this season (Johnson, Harvick, Logano, and Truex) but have some of them lost something along the way? Also, have other teams stepped up at the 1.5's in the mean time?

I think Kansas will play out with a lot of the usual 1.5 suspects but it will be interesting to see if JGR or even RFR make any strides soon at tracks like this.




The Good
  • Jimmie Johnson- JJ had his 11 straight Kansas top 10 streak broke last fall when he started 32nd and finished 40th after only finishing 180 of 267 laps. I think it is safe to say he might start a new top 10 streak this weekend.
  • Carl Edwards- Carl has yet to win at Kansas but other than that he has been as consistent as they come. In his last 11 Kansas races he has 9 top 10's and 5 top 5's. He also has lead a lap in 7 of those 11 races. 
  • Kyle Larson- He has yet to lead a lap at Kansas in his career (2 starts), but he does have a runner up finish the last time we were here after starting 18th. His other finish was a 12th place run a year ago. Kansas is the kind of track that Larson has shown he can run well at.
The Middle
  • Kevin Harvick- Harvick has three straight pole awards at Kansas, but only one of those turned into a win (2013). With how well he has run in 2015 he should probably be in the "good" grouping, but he has had an up and down career here. Most of the time he finishes inside the top 13, so he is a safe bet either way.
The Bad
  • AJ Allmendinger- AJ does have a pole here and also two top 10's, but since 2010 he only has one finish better than 20th (7 races). On the bright side, AJ did finish 11th just last time around at Kansas so he could find a decent finish this weekend.
  • Justin Allgaier- Crash, crash, and crash. Rough first three tries at Kansas for Justin. Really hard to put a read on him just here, but he isn't terrible on other 1.5's like Kansas so he could pull a top 20, most likely a top 25. 
  • David Ragan- Hard to judge Ragan when a lot of his career as of late he has been in an under-performing car but in his last four his best finish is 27th and the other three are 30+. While with Roush he was a bit better off, but still only had two top 15's in six tries. 
Track Stats
  • Kansas has 12 different career winners in 18 Cup races.
  • 4 drivers are tied for second most wins with 2. Stewart, Biffle, Johnson, and Kenseth
  • Jeff Gordon has the most Kansas wins with 3 career
  • In 2011 Kansas started to have two races a year.
  • Manufacture win count: Chevy 9, Ford 5, Toyota 2, and Dodge 2.
  • Brad Keselowski won after starting 25th in 2011, the furthest back a winner has come from.
  • Jimmie Johnson has the most career laps lead (586) with Kenseth in second (501).
  • JJ, Harvick, and Kahne are tied for most career Poles at Kansas (3).
  • Jeff Gordon has run the most career laps at Kansas (4714) with Harvick in second (4644).
  • Most cautions in a Kansas race was 2013 in the Fall Chase race (15).
Track Information
  • Surface: Asphalt
  • Length: 1.5 Mile
  • Banking
    • Turns: 17-20 degrees
    • Frontstretch: 9-11 degrees
    • Backstretch: 5 degrees

Kansas Speedway
Race
Date
Cars
Winner(s)
St
Car
2001-28
9/30/2001
43
Jeff Gordon
2
Chevrolet
2002-29
9/29/2002
43
Jeff Gordon
10
Chevrolet
2003-30
10/5/2003
43
Ryan Newman
11
Dodge
2004-30
10/10/2004
43
Joe Nemechek
1
Chevrolet
2005-30
10/9/2005
43
Mark Martin
19
Ford
2006-29
10/1/2006
43
Tony Stewart
21
Chevrolet
2007-29
9/30/2007
43
Greg Biffle
7
Ford
2008-29
9/28/2008
43
Jimmie Johnson
1
Chevrolet
2009-29
10/4/2009
43
Tony Stewart
5
Chevrolet
2010-29
10/3/2010
43
Greg Biffle
5
Ford
2011-13
6/5/2011
43
Brad Keselowski
25
Dodge
2011-30
10/9/2011
43
Jimmie Johnson
19
Chevrolet
2012-08
4/22/2012
43
Denny Hamlin
4
Toyota
2012-32
10/21/2012
43
Matt Kenseth
12
Ford
2013-08
4/21/2013
43
Matt Kenseth
1
Toyota
2013-30
10/6/2013
43
Kevin Harvick
1
Chevrolet
2014-11
5/10/2014
43
Jeff Gordon
13
Chevrolet
2014-30
10/5/2014
43
Joey Logano
4
Ford


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